Outdoor electronic cabinets have become popular in recent years. They can protect a wide range of electronic equipment including radios, multicarrier power amplifiers (MCPA), power suppliers, batteries, and wireless cell site backhaul equipment. These cabinets can protect base station equipment from environmental conditions while minimizing operating expenses and energy consumption.
Typically, electronics cabinets include one or two doors mounted to the front of the cabinet to provide access to components positioned within the front portion of the cabinet. Such cabinets also typically include one or more removable panels that form much of the rear wall of the cabinet to permit access to the rear of the cabinet. These panels, which are often mounted with two “quarter-turn” latches, can be removed separately to enable access to a specific area within the rear of the cabinet.
Unfortunately, electronics cabinets are often targets for theft and vandalism, with batteries being a particularly attractive commodity. Thieves often use crow bars or other prying implements to force the rear panels off of their mounting locations. As such, cabinet manufacturers have produced locking systems that prevent unwanted removal of the rear panels.
One approach includes brackets or hasps mounted adjacent to the quarter-turn latches. A cover encloses the latches and hasps, and a padlock secures the cover in place. Only by unlocking the padlock and removing the cover can the underlying quarter-turn latch be rotated so that the panel can be removed. This approach is generally successful, but requires that each individual padlock for each panel to be removed to allow full access to the rear of the cabinet. Some cabinets may have as many as four rear panels, thereby requiring eight different padlocks. As a result, removal of the panels can be time-consuming. In addition, the use of eight separate locks can be expensive, and if the locks are designed to have matching keys or combinations for simplicity, the cost may rise even more. As such, it may be desirable to provide a protective mechanism that requires less effort to access the entirety of the rear of the cabinet.